​Dr. Melanie Palomares, City of Hope 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 Marni Levine Seed GrantDr. Palomares heads a lab at City of Hope that conducts breast cancer research, focusing on cancer control and population science, as well as on outcomes research. Dr. Palomares has performed clinical trials with common substances such as grape seed extract and mushroom powder on post-menopausal women who are at high risk for developing breast cancer.

Dr. Susan Ramus, USC 2012 Marni Levine Seed GrantDr. Ramus’ laboratory aims to identify inherited changes that increase risk of ovarian cancer. Changes in high-risk genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 cause both breast and ovarian cancer. Her group is also studying thousands of ovarian tumors to detect patterns of changes that may predict how well patients respond to current treatments.

Dr. Julie Eileen Lang, USC 2013 Marni Levine Seed GrantDr. Lang studies the molecular profiling of circulating tumor cells in breast cancer. She has developed a novel strategy to isolate rare cancer cells in the bloodstream that are shed by a primary tumor. Her research will study if profiling circulating tumor cells can lead to personalized cancer care.

Dr. Yuan Yuan, City of Hope 2014 Marni Levine Seed GrantBreast cancer cells were found to be auxotrophic for arginine, which provides the rationale for arginine deprivation as a treatment strategy. In the current research project, an arginine depleting enzyme will be studied extensively utilizing breast cancer cell lines. The preclinical results generated from this research projects will be utilized for design of phase I clinical trials which will directly benefit breast cancer patients in need.

Dr. Jae Jung, City of Hope 2015 Marni Levine Seed GrantThe overall goal of Dr. Jung’s project is to develop a treatment for metastatic breast cancer that can harness the power of our own immune system to help destroy tumor cells. By treating tumor cells in the skin with cryotherapy and a combination of immune modulators, the immune system can be “trained” to detect and kill breast cancer cells both locally and systemically. Correlative studies will evaluate the development of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes, which are key prognostic markers for response to treatment and overall survival. The results from this pilot study will be used to define an immunotherapy protocol that can be used for many different types of breast cancer and will be especially effective for treating patients that are unable to receive targeted therapies or have failed traditional therapy.

Jun Wang, Ph.D., USC 2018 Marni Levine Seed GrantTriple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is often more aggressive and characterized by a poorer prognosis compared to hormone receptor positive breast cancer. It disproportionally affects certain racial/ethnic groups, particularly African Americans. Although tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes have been emerging as important factors for TNBC survival, there is currently a lack of studies targeting the multi-ethnic patient population. Dr. Wang focuses on investigating the association between tumor immune microenvironment characteristics, including specific tumor immune infiltrates, and TNBC survival in racially/ethnically diverse patients.MARNI LEVINE MEMORIAL RESEARCH CAREER DEVELOPMENT AWARDS

Dr. Mei Kong, City of Hope 2011 Marni Levine Research Career Development Award

Dr. Sanaz Memarzadeh, UCLA 2011Marni Levine Research Career Development Award

Dr. Christina Curtis, USC 2012Marni Levine Research Career Development AwardDr. Curtis’s laboratory researches data-driven modeling in combination with computationally driven experimentation to analyze the genetic and molecular processes of cancer. Specifically, her research exploits high-dimensional genomic data and population genetic approaches, and an area of concentration has been the molecular profiling of breast cancer. Dr. Curtis and her team are developing techniques for the systems-level analysis of genotype-phenotype associations, integrating multiple data types derived from sequencing and array-based technologies to understand mechanisms of tumor formation, interrogate intra-tumor heterogeneity and trace stem cell lineages using single-cell genomic assays, and describe mechanisms of cancer progression and therapeutic resistance

Dr. Giridharan Ramsingh, USC 2013 Marni Levine Research Career Development AwardDr. Ramsingh’s research focuses on under-standing the mechanism of the origin of Therapy-Related Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). His lab has worked on the Whole Genome Sequencing of Therapy Related AML, which is a sub-type of AML that comes from complication from receiving chemother-apy or radiation therapy for other cancers. This type of AML has very poor survival rate.

Dr. Min Yu, USC 2015 Marni Levine Research Career Development AwardThe focus of Dr. Yu’s research has been to understand how breast cancers spread to other organs through blood stream and establish metastatic tumors. This research involves finding rare tumor cells in the blood circulation and identifying the unique properties of those rare tumor cells. The knowledge gained from this research can provide new insights to improve the treatment of patients with metastatic breast cancers on a personalized basis.

Judith Carroll, Ph.D., UCLA2016Marni Levine Research Career Development AwardDr. Carroll’s current research seeks to address current gaps in our understanding of why breast cancer survivors are at increased risk for secondary health problems and reduced life expectancy compared to similarly aged women without a history of breast cancer. This work will examine unique individual behavioral vulnerability that directly impacts biological aging, and ultimately influences the long term health and well-being of breast cancer survivors. From this research, important naturalistic and intervention studies will be developed to address behavioral factors, such as depression and sleep disturbances, with the goal of directly improving the health and well-being of breast cancer survivors.

Kenue Shen, Ph.D., USC2017Marni Levine Research Career Development AwardDr. Shen’s research has been focused on creating tumor-on-a-chip models to understand how tumor microenvironments influence cancer progression and therapeutic resistance, and explore more effective cancer treatments. This project involves is using microengineered tumor models to understand how tumor-stromal interactions give rise to invasive cancer phenotypes and metastatic diseases.

Erina Vlashi, Ph.D., UCLA 2018 Marni Levine Research Career Development AwardDr. Vlashi studies the effect that radiation therapy has on the metabolism of cancer cells, specifically on cancer cells that have “cancer-initiating” capability (cancer stem cells). Cancer stem cells are thought to not only maintain the growth of breast tumors but also play a major role in their resistance to current anti-cancer treatments. By understanding the changes that radiation therapy induces in the metabolic pathways that fuel the growth of these cells, Dr. Vlashi hopes to uncover vulnerabilities that can be exploited and combined with radiation therapy that would ultimately lead to significant improvement in tumor control, and perhaps cure.

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